This Angry Letter Is Not To My Character
There's this evil rumor floating around that Chris Baty advised people in the last official NaNoWriMo podcast to stop writing on November 30 and not to continue into December or beyond.
There are a two schools of thought on this. The first is FUCK CHRIS BATY! And the second school is people who agree with him. In case you hadn't gotten the impression yet, I'm in the first camp. :)
See here's my counterargument to the argument that I haven't listened to yet (I am so far friggin' behind in podcasts). Baty apparently states that the support network won't be there in December and it will just get disheartening.
But maybe he stops checking the boards in December because they're still pretty active. They're less active but as someone who was writing last year until December 9, I can tell you that I was still floating around the "Character and Plot Realism Q&A" forums getting answers on things (and answering of course) all the way through mid-December and there were still a lot of other happenings. The boards were actually still getting some comments in September for goodness sakes (I checked it out once for craps and giggles, I wasn't still around).
Plus, in December, a lot of us crazier types do NaNoFiMo!
National Novel Finishing Month used to be nothing more than a thread in the forums but this year, pookel (who I have no idea where she finds as many things to post about on the NaNo forums as she does) has made it officially a separate month on par with NaNoEdMo in March with the site nanofimo.org.
The goal the site states in its FAQ is: "NaNoFiMo is a challenge to write at least 30,000 words on your unfinished novel draft and to reach a conclusion to the novel, between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31."
It doesn't have to be your NaNoWriMo novel that you finish during the month but it definitely dovetails into it well.
Plus, there is a threat on the nanowrimo.org forums called, "Never-ending Novel Club" to offer support.
So again, in conclusion, FUCK CHRIS BATY!
There's a little thing called momentum and if you stop writing at the end of November, you lose the whole thing. No one is as interested in seeing what happens to your characters right now as you are. If you stop for any reason, you're going to lose interest in your characters and won't want to see the story to conclusion.
Or worse, you'll lose the entire advantage of writing a novel in one month, remembering everything that's going on because you're immersed in it.
The human brain can, of course, retain facts over the course of years but no one can be expected to remember the little plot line intricacies that chances are you've come up with over the course of this month.
Even with careful note taking, you're not going to feel the story, just look at the words on the page to continue.
You know, Chris Baty does and says a lot of things right. He's got a lot of people through the month (and has since the beginning) but in this case he's dead wrong. The second that most people set their novels down on November 30, they're never going to pick them back up unless it's the first few days of December.
The support will still be there and, trust me, winning NaNoFiMo is twice as rewarding as winning NaNoWriMo. There are no two words of catharsis as good as "the end."
It's really funny how life imitates art even when no one knows the art is happening. The events in Canada yesterday nearly exactly echo a subplot in my novel.
For those who don't follow the politics of our nearest neighbor, the Liberal Party headed by Paul Martin had two parties - the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois pull out of the governing coalition (the 135 seats that the Liberal Party controls was not enough to make up a governing majority in the 308 seat Parliament by itself) and the minor parties giving him the majority along with the official opposition Conservative Party banded together to force a vote of "no confidence" and call for new elections.
In my novel, the ruling Union Party (a centrist party sort of similar to the Liberal Party or New Labour or the Democratic Leadership Council) has their centre-right allies the Federalist Party leave the coalition, therefore losing their governing majority and forcing new Parliamentary elections.
The Liberal Coalition/Socialist potential voting bloc in the novel is looking to gain enough seats to take control of Parliament in my novel.
Now, in real life Canada, it's the right wing that's trying to gain a majority but other than that, the story's the same. In January, Canada's going to have new elections (everything they do makes more sense like one month campaigns) so the whole month of December is going to be spent on campaigning.
I'm going to be watching the Canadian campaign for two reasons. The first is because I'm a political junkie. And the second is because it will provide a lot of fodder for any potential rewrite.
Just putting this all in writing so no one can ever claim that my plot is derivitive. I had a plot of a dissolution of Parliament in my story before the situation in Canada exploded.
Though Chris Baty can still fuck off even if I do wait until January to truly craft my novel.
2004 NaNoWriMo: 63,190 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 50,213 words
incendiarymind: 50,213 words
reliantfc3: 50,022 words
I didn't get any additional word count yesterday because I got caught up on here for hours (Canadian election and all). I had even planned on watching the movie "What's Cooking?" as a reward for "finishing" and didn't even do that. Tonight I will finally reward myself for finishing by watching a movie or two.
Though I do plan on doing a little writing. Though now those words kind of count against December. Not that I care if I make 30,000, I just want to finish!
Best of luck to everyone who wants to travel December with me to the real promised land of a finished rough draft.
There are a two schools of thought on this. The first is FUCK CHRIS BATY! And the second school is people who agree with him. In case you hadn't gotten the impression yet, I'm in the first camp. :)
See here's my counterargument to the argument that I haven't listened to yet (I am so far friggin' behind in podcasts). Baty apparently states that the support network won't be there in December and it will just get disheartening.
But maybe he stops checking the boards in December because they're still pretty active. They're less active but as someone who was writing last year until December 9, I can tell you that I was still floating around the "Character and Plot Realism Q&A" forums getting answers on things (and answering of course) all the way through mid-December and there were still a lot of other happenings. The boards were actually still getting some comments in September for goodness sakes (I checked it out once for craps and giggles, I wasn't still around).
Plus, in December, a lot of us crazier types do NaNoFiMo!
National Novel Finishing Month used to be nothing more than a thread in the forums but this year, pookel (who I have no idea where she finds as many things to post about on the NaNo forums as she does) has made it officially a separate month on par with NaNoEdMo in March with the site nanofimo.org.
The goal the site states in its FAQ is: "NaNoFiMo is a challenge to write at least 30,000 words on your unfinished novel draft and to reach a conclusion to the novel, between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31."
It doesn't have to be your NaNoWriMo novel that you finish during the month but it definitely dovetails into it well.
Plus, there is a threat on the nanowrimo.org forums called, "Never-ending Novel Club" to offer support.
So again, in conclusion, FUCK CHRIS BATY!
There's a little thing called momentum and if you stop writing at the end of November, you lose the whole thing. No one is as interested in seeing what happens to your characters right now as you are. If you stop for any reason, you're going to lose interest in your characters and won't want to see the story to conclusion.
Or worse, you'll lose the entire advantage of writing a novel in one month, remembering everything that's going on because you're immersed in it.
The human brain can, of course, retain facts over the course of years but no one can be expected to remember the little plot line intricacies that chances are you've come up with over the course of this month.
Even with careful note taking, you're not going to feel the story, just look at the words on the page to continue.
You know, Chris Baty does and says a lot of things right. He's got a lot of people through the month (and has since the beginning) but in this case he's dead wrong. The second that most people set their novels down on November 30, they're never going to pick them back up unless it's the first few days of December.
The support will still be there and, trust me, winning NaNoFiMo is twice as rewarding as winning NaNoWriMo. There are no two words of catharsis as good as "the end."
It's really funny how life imitates art even when no one knows the art is happening. The events in Canada yesterday nearly exactly echo a subplot in my novel.
For those who don't follow the politics of our nearest neighbor, the Liberal Party headed by Paul Martin had two parties - the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois pull out of the governing coalition (the 135 seats that the Liberal Party controls was not enough to make up a governing majority in the 308 seat Parliament by itself) and the minor parties giving him the majority along with the official opposition Conservative Party banded together to force a vote of "no confidence" and call for new elections.
In my novel, the ruling Union Party (a centrist party sort of similar to the Liberal Party or New Labour or the Democratic Leadership Council) has their centre-right allies the Federalist Party leave the coalition, therefore losing their governing majority and forcing new Parliamentary elections.
The Liberal Coalition/Socialist potential voting bloc in the novel is looking to gain enough seats to take control of Parliament in my novel.
Now, in real life Canada, it's the right wing that's trying to gain a majority but other than that, the story's the same. In January, Canada's going to have new elections (everything they do makes more sense like one month campaigns) so the whole month of December is going to be spent on campaigning.
I'm going to be watching the Canadian campaign for two reasons. The first is because I'm a political junkie. And the second is because it will provide a lot of fodder for any potential rewrite.
Just putting this all in writing so no one can ever claim that my plot is derivitive. I had a plot of a dissolution of Parliament in my story before the situation in Canada exploded.
Though Chris Baty can still fuck off even if I do wait until January to truly craft my novel.
2004 NaNoWriMo: 63,190 words
2005 NaNoWriMo: 50,213 words
incendiarymind: 50,213 words
reliantfc3: 50,022 words
I didn't get any additional word count yesterday because I got caught up on here for hours (Canadian election and all). I had even planned on watching the movie "What's Cooking?" as a reward for "finishing" and didn't even do that. Tonight I will finally reward myself for finishing by watching a movie or two.
Though I do plan on doing a little writing. Though now those words kind of count against December. Not that I care if I make 30,000, I just want to finish!
Best of luck to everyone who wants to travel December with me to the real promised land of a finished rough draft.
posted by incendiarymind at 7:32 AM
3 Comments:
I listened to the podcast when it first came out. I agree with you--that you can finish the novel outside of November--but I didn't have much of a strong reaction to what Chris Baty said. My impression is that these are his suggestions. I think other people are taking him far too literally. After the first year of Nanowrimo, people started asking Baty about what constitutes a novel, if planning counts, etc. They wanted rules, so as the founder, he had to make up rules.
I don't think it's Baty's intention that this be iron clad. Sure, he says the ideal goal is to have the 49,999th and 50,000th words be "THE END" but he's not going to put us in the corner if we don't do that. Some people need lots of rules in their lives to make them feel like there's a point to all the madness. For the rest of us, NaNo is a jumping off point--merely the spark in a normally dreary world that provides us the incentive to be novelists.
Oh, and I almost forgot...
Congratulations on reaching 50k! And good luck on finishing that novel in December. I know you can do it.
I know he's not literal when he says the 49,999 and 50,000th word should be "the and end." Though the fact that guideline is actually in the FAQ has always raised my ire slightly.
I know there's no rule that says when a NaNo can end, only begin. And I do agree with "no coming in with something and finishing it."
I just don't think he should discourage people from finishing the project any time they feel like it and should understand the sway his words hold as the "guru." If anything's going to draw people back to NaNoWriMo, it's actually finishing a project.
Purely personally anecdotal, but I know that if "Why Sleep When I'll Only Dream?" didn't really have "the end" at the end, I wouldn't have picked up a new project this year - alright maybe I would because I love the regional support setup. :)
To try to state that people should "the end" it as close to 50,000 as possible just puts more stress on the writers who participate.
I dunno, I'm rambling angry and I think we're on generally the same page so I'll just close by saying, "thank you." I hope we'll see each other around the NaNo blogosphere and hopefully be joined by many others in the future.
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